Project D: Using Diversity Outbred mice to study metabolic traits; Karen L. Svenson (Jackson) This project will use Diversity Outbred (DO) mice to identify genes involved in complex biological pathways related to metabolic syndrome using a high fat diet perturbation. Mixed genomes in experimental models have historically imposed enormous hurdles to sorting out relevant functional components of fundamental biological processes. With current technologies for high-density genotyping, genetically heterogeneous population is now a welcome resource for interrogating nuances of multiple biological systems that support and maintain life. Adding an environmental perturbation, high fat diet, will help to recapitulate a specific challenge to humans that is increasingly recognized as a significant driver of overall health. This research plan provides an opportunity to integrate with other Center projects to build a gene-environment interaction of complex metabolic processes by generating comprehensive resources to be utilized in studies of epigenetics (Project A), genotype-phenotype networks (Projects E and G), RNA processing (Project F), gene expression (Project G), and metabolites (Project H) under perturbed environmental conditions.